.... and the place should be obvious

One of the great things about my job and about life in general is I am always learning.  While glancing through Sundays paper online looking at the cooking I noticed an article on "Managing your clutter", I took a moment out to read it and realized in 20 years of doing 5S here I was learning something new. Thanks Guardian.

From the article emphasis is mine

HOW TO DECLUTTER

There are two general rules you need to absorb before you throw yourself into a major prune: everything should have its own place and the place should be obvious; any system created must be one that can be maintained. Your aim at the end of a declutter is to know where everything is. That's everything, from your last phone bill to the extra scourers.

These I know are the tenants of 5S.  My appreciation is how they are said and the emphasis given. How many 5S implementations end up as just a clearing out and cleaning up exercise, and how many more die on the vine for no good maintenance system?

The article is great and I would recommend you make a minute to read it. 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/28/managing-clutter 

Go see II

Following up from the blog on the falling over packages the team doing the Muda walk, took the time and worked out where the packages where falling over.  The place was marked with a piece of tape and and the end of the run a better look was taken.  That better look uncovered a small piece of paper that was stuck under the conveyor line.  Paper was removed and the falling package issue 'disappeared'. Well done to the guys.

The important issue here is that we could have talked about the issue as much as we wanted away from the line, holed up in meeting room, drawing Ishikawa (fishbone) diagrams, filling out A3 problem solving sheets and allocating tasks without understanding and hence being able to solve the problem.  Very often the most important thing we can do is go out to the line and look at the problem.  Then we can ask and answer questions, is the area well maintained, is 5S up to standard, are work instructions nearby. where is the problem happening, when is the problems happening?

I love the fact that Gemba in Japanese also means the crime scene, having been the work place of the criminal and now being the work place of the detective.  For us the crime was the wastes being created (motion, transport, over processing, waiting, defect).  By being detectives and going to the Gemba the team were able to solve the crime.

Go No Go

Mistake proofing, Poka Yoke, Mistake proofing can be as simple as a piece of paper.
I like it the bun trouble shooting tool.

Go see

Just back from doing a Muda walk with a client.  A Muda or Waste walk is when you go to the line and deliberately look for examples of motion, transport, unnecessary inventory, waiting, over production, defects and unnecessary processing.  We saw a lot of defects and hats of the company for going out there to tackle the problems they now see.
The issue we decided to focus on was a simple one.  A package would fall over, stopping the line, requiring an operator to go (run) over reset the package and restart the line.  We counted approximately 10 line stops in a 20 minute window.
How to solve this problem, well it is a matter of go see again.  Where does the package fall over, pretty quickly the team narrowed it down to a 1 meter section of line.  The homework for the team is to identify where exactly it falls over.  Then between the operators, supervisor and maintenance the actual cause of the tottering packages will be understood.  One thing I know, everything about this old problem is going to be solved by going and seeing.
I'll let you know how they progress on their first quality improvement/waste removal project.

When factories vanish, so can innovators

The last cutlery factory in the US closed, this New York Times article rightly asks how that closure is going to affect innovation. 

Link - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13every.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=factories%20vanish&st=cse 
 

LEI daily check list

Checklists are an overlooked fantastic tool, one of the simplest Poke Yokes out there.  Ask your self would you be comfortable flying in an airplane if you knew the pilot and engineer had said to each other "damn it this plane has been checked every other time it’s been flown, we can leave it this one time"?  No I doubt you would be happy.  Would you be happy to undertake heart surgery or any surgery where the surgeon does not have a before and after check list?  I know this is a trick question, many surgeons don't use them thinking that they are above such simple tools.
 

For yourself do you have a check list to ensure that the daily tasks you as a manager, worker, communicator, leader are being carried out to your satisfaction?

Standard work is not just for those repetitive manufacturing, service or administrative jobs but for any job that has a repetitive element to it.  And as management much of our day is actually made up of repetitive elements.  They may be different each time they are done and may deliberately not have the same result each time.  They each however need to happen and the simple check list may be the best way to ensure they happen
 

 

Early Christmas present

If you have not visited xkcd it's the geek's cartoon of choice, and as a self admitted operations geek I enjoy the humour.  Process and values steam mapping and flow charts are a big part of Lean, so thought this would be suitable

An early Merry Christmas